Characteristics of the First H-mode Discharges in NSTX

We report observations of the first low-to-high (L-H) confinement mode transitions in the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX). The H-mode energy confinement time increased over reference L-mode discharges transiently by 100-300%, as high as {approximately}150 ms. This confinement time is {approximately}1.8-2.3 times higher than predicted by a multi-machine ELM-free H-mode scaling. This achievement extends the H-mode window of fusion devices down to a record low aspect ratio (R/a) {approximately} 1.3, challenging both confinement and L-H power thresholds scalings based on conventional aspect ratio tokamaks.